Disney is releasing a boxset of every Walt Disney Animated Classic

Ever wanted to own every Walt Disney Animated Classic? Well, now you can…

…sort of.

Walt Disney is releasing a mammoth-sized boxset of all its Walt Disney Animated Classics. The set will include 55 movies, with each film appearing as per its release order (1937 up until 2018).

In order to future proof the set there is also a space for a 56th film – Wreck Breaks the Internet (2018). This film is released in cinemas at the end of 2018, so will arrive on DVD/Blu-ray in early 2019 ready to slot into the neat little space in the collection.

As film box sets go this is a pretty awesome one as Walt Disney Animated Classics are regarded as some of the best animated movies of all-time, so getting all these great movies in one go is pretty impressive. As a reminder, the set includes the likes of Snow White (1937), The Jungle Book (1967), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Moana (2016) and so much more.

The Disney Classics Complete Movie Box Set will be available on DVD (priced at £200) and Blu-Ray (priced at £250). Neither option is particularly wallet-friendly, but if you weigh up the cost of the most expensive set, then it’s around £4.50 a movie, which doesn’t sound too bad.

Great stuff, right? Well, yes – if you can afford it, as it looks beautiful.

You’ll note that earlier in this post I used the phrase ‘sort of’ when mentioning that this will be a complete set. You see, there are a couple of wrinkles with this set.

First and foremost, while this is a complete set for the UK, it’s not actually a complete run of all the Walt Disney Animated Classics. In the UK we work from a different list of Animated films than our US cousins and as such, a couple of movies are absent.

This boxset doesn’t include Dinosaur (2000), nor does it include Winnie the Pooh (2011). For some bizarre reason, here in the UK, Disney doesn’t rank these as Walt Disney Classics, even though they are on the official list.

This isn’t a thing that’s specific to this boxset – Disney UK never includes these films amongst its list. So, if you Google the official list of Walt Disney Animated Classics you’ll notice the numbering (Snow White is #1, Tangled is #50 etc) gets a little muddled in places.

If you buy this boxset, bear in mind that these films aren’t included. Although it’s worth noting that they probably never will be, so now is as good a time as any to buy, if you want a boxset like this.

The other problem is that in the UK not all of the movies have been released on Blu-ray – Saludos Amigos (1943) The Three Caballeros (1945) Make Mine Music (1946) Melody Time (1948) and The Black Cauldron (1985) have only ever had a DVD release. This means that if you buy the Blu-ray box set you will get DVD copies for these five films, as Disney is not upgrading them.

Bizarre, right?

I appreciate these five films aren’t particularly popular, but surely now, with the release of this set, Disney should have upgraded the titles accordingly. Ah well, looks like Disney has no plans to ever release these films on Blu-ray, so DVD is about as good as we’re going to get.

The Walt Disney Classic Movie Collection is available to buy from December 3rd and is available to pre-order from the usual places. I already own all the movies on Blu-ray (including Dinosaur and a Region A copy of Winnie the Pooh) so I won’t be investing in this set – but I would if I didn’t own them individually.

And now for a couple of questions you’re probably asking:

Does the Walt Disney Classics Complete Movie Box Set include Song of the South (1946)?

No. Song of the South isn’t a Walt Disney Animated Classic.

Does the set include Mary Poppins (1964) or Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)?

Nope – as with Song of the South, neither Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomstocks nor Pete’s Dragon (1977) are Walt Disney Animated Classics so they are not in the set.

Should you want to know more about what is/isn’t classed as a Walt Disney Animated Classics, then check out my guide to all 56. This guide is based on the US list (which is why there are 56 entries, not 55) and runs through to the most recent release, Moana.